HISTORICAL ARCHIVE
Every claim from this day’s challenge, with its verdict, explanation and sources.
Koala fingerprints are so similar to ours they could confuse crime-scene investigators.
Koalas evolved fingerprints independently for gripping branches; a forensic scientist warned in 1996 that their loops and whorls closely resemble human prints, though experts can still tell them apart.
A rainbow has seven colors.
A rainbow is a continuous spectrum with no sharp boundaries. Isaac Newton divided it into seven colors partly to match the seven notes of the musical scale; other cultures count five or six.
Dalmatians are born with their spots.
Dalmatian puppies are born completely white. Their spots gradually appear over the first weeks as they grow.
Sweden texts blood donors when their blood saves a patient.
Donors get a thank-you text at donation and a second message when their specific unit is transfused into a patient.
Australia is wider than the Moon.
Technically yes: Australia spans almost 4,000 km east to west, while the Moon is about 3,475 km across. But the Moon is a sphere — its surface area is roughly five times Australia's.
Touching a toad gives you warts.
Warts are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), which spreads between people. A toad's bumpy skin glands can secrete irritating toxins, but they can't give you warts.
A Rubik's Cube has more arrangements than seconds since the Big Bang.
43 quintillion combinations versus 4.36×10^17 seconds of cosmic history — the cube wins by a factor of ~100.
A group of crows is called a murder.
In poetry and trivia, yes — the term traces to a 1486 English book of hunting terms. Ornithologists just call it a flock.
The Moon is bigger when it's near the horizon.
Photos show it's the same width low and high in the sky. It's an optical illusion — cover it with a fingertip or view it through a paper tube and the "giant" Moon shrinks back.